


Dragons

by starkraving



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 21:11:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkraving/pseuds/starkraving
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck Hansen hits the emergency over-ride before Stacker can stop him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragons

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt challenge on the Pacific Rim Kink Meme. Not very kinky though. Comments and favorite lines are appreciated and any and all Stacker Pentecost feels.

 

***

 

In this world, Chuck Hansen hits the emergency over-ride before Stacker can stop him.

 

He should have seen it coming. Marshal Pentecost’s known Ranger Chuck Hansen long enough that, Drift or no, he should have known. But Herc Hansen’s boy is the best of the best and while they Drift well enough to drive Striker, the mental shorthand that comes off Chuck Hansen comes too fast, sears too hot, comes chaotic through the link between them and Stacker is amazed that Herc could ever run with Chuck, whose thoughts burn too bright, razor sharp on the edge of your psyche – all numbers, heat, and _sorry, Marshal, Striker’s my girl._

“No! _Hansen_!”

 

But Chuck’s already locked his side of the Conn-Pod and his motion harness jars, and an AI voice chimes, pleasantly, _“Escape pod protocols initiated. Pilot one disengaged.”_ Stacker shouts, bellowing as the Drift breaks, as Chuck’s mind snaps out of his skull, the light and the math and the kid with the bulldog and the Gispy Danger ballcap evaporating –

 

_“– like you always do. Go ahead! The only reason you’re a Jaeger pilot is because your father doesn’t love you enough to keep you out of the Conn-Pod!” She splits his lip open and the pain is like – dying, over and over, the heat and the silence and he’s screaming her name: “Tamsin! Tamsin wake up! Goddammit! I need you! Tamsin, do this I –!” “–need you to understand,” says his old man, gripping his shoulders so hard it bruises. He shakes him. He’s drunk. “I couldn’t save you both! But I –” “–made you a promise.” And he gives her her heart in a blue handkerchief and Mako – realizes what she’s just done. But she won’t take it back so he says, “Go to hell, Mori. You just–!” “– want to slay a dragon,” he says.  Luna laughs a little over the phone and – yanks him off Raleigh Becket, but it’s Mako he’s looking at and she doesn’t say – “I love you, Stacks.” Her mouth against his. “You can always find me in the Drift” – “I’m sorry.” – “That’s my son you’ve got there. My son.” –_

_Tell him I’ll be alright._

\- and their sortie comes undone. Chuck jars in his harness, gasps. The AI says, _“Pilot two – engaging 100% neural load,”_ and Chuck screams. Stacker roars Hansen’s name as the auto-release drags his harness back into the escape pod, hauling him away from his co-pilot, a boy he’s known since he was thirteen years old, whose whole body locks, holo-lights ringing his limbs as the circuit suit fully engages. Stacker knows, because he did it in Tokyo, that it will burn Striker’s mechanical sensory system into the ropy grid of human nerves and ignite Charles Hansen beyond imagination, past understanding and make him something else. The harness locks Stacker’s back into the pod, then closes around him.

 

Stacker slams his fist against the dura-glass, his palm flat against the inside of the pod. He can barely see his co-pilot, his hand on the kill-switch, watching the kaiju circle round. They’re still ghosting though, he can feel Chuck Hansen burning like Tokyo, like Anchorage – no longer human, just a titan with a soul.

 

The comm is open. “My dad always said.” Chuck laughs, through the pain of the neural load, through the sound of Striker’s framework groaning. “When you have a shot…”

 

The escape pod deploys.

 

***

 

Stacker Pentecost carries Chuck Hansen’s ghost around with him. That’s the best way to describe it – the feeling of this kid laughing at him from the other side of the Drift, like Tamsin used to laugh at him. Tamsin’s ghost has been quiet for years now, almost a decade now but Chuck – it’s no surprise to him that Herc Hansen’s boy is virulent and loud, a line of rock music in the backdrop of his thoughts playing like the hook of a song he can’t get out of his head and, really, that doesn’t bother him as much as it should. Max takes an unprompted liking to him and Stacker, for his part, lets the damn dog drool on his coat sleeves.

“C’mon, Max.” Stacker wipes his sleeve on his pant leg, gives the mutt another good scratch behind the ears, and stands. “Let’s go.”

 

Herc is waiting for him near Bay 1. His arm’s not in the sling anymore. Max trots over to bump his head into the other man’s leg and await pettings, which Herc kneels down to give him. Stacker waits. Somewhere in the bed of his thoughts there is someone laughing and he cannot tell, for the life of him, who of his many ghosts it may be now – Luna, Tamsin, or Chuck fucking Hansen. It feels warm though, feels like home. Luna was a dog person. He thinks Luna would have liked Max and, by extension, his angry young owner.

 

“You ready?” says Stacker.

 

“Not really.”

 

Well, that’s probably not unexpected. Stacker adjusts his jacket a little. “Me either.”

 

This surprises Herc, who looks up at him because, well, that is the first time in a long time that Stacker Pentecost has ever said anything even remotely unsure of himself. Stacker just levels his usual look at Herc, still waiting for him, but with the understanding that perhaps he is in no rush himself to walk out of the Shatterdome for the last time and into the brave new world. His last Drift was with a boy who was never, by his own choice, anything but the Jaeger pilot – that and Herc Hansen’s son. Tamsin is gone. Luna is long gone. Whatever lays beyond the door is nothing, he thinks, that he will be ready to face like a human being, not when he – like Herc – has been split down the middle. A half a soul in an old man’s body.

 

“There are no more dragons to slay,” says Stacker, pulling on his gloves. “No more Jaegers. Not sure that’s a world I understand anymore.”

 

“Aye.”

 

“Might have been easier going down in that Jaeger,” says Stacker.

 

Herc exhales, once, shakily. “Tell me again…”

 

“He said he’d be alright,” says Stacker, looking over the empty Shatterdome, the cavernous launch bays, standing silent, the lights all gone out. “I was in his head when he said it, before he broke the handshake.” _Let me slay a few dragons, aye?_ “He was scared, felt it in him, like a knife in the gut – you know it. When you know you’re about to die.” A beat. “He could have just let me stay with him. I wanted to. He was my co-pilot. I wanted to stay with him but…” Stacker shakes his head, just once, looking down before lifting his gaze again. He doesn’t look at Herc. “He saved my life and every soul on this planet. Last thought in his head was wondering what the hell an old war dog like you might do without him.”

 

And there’s that line again, that rift like the hook of the best song he’d ever heard somewhere in the back of his head, and there’s that feeling like a sunshine, like a barely-there kiss, like the color of his sister’s eyes, like Tamsin’s skin under his hand, like Chuck Hansen whistling as he swaggers out of the Conn-Pod again and Stacker – he finally looks at his old friend, kneeling on the floor with his head bowed, one hand on the bulldog’s blocky head.

 

“Right,” says Herc. Max woofs and nudges his palm. “I’m ready.”

 

Stacker nods. “Then let’s go.”

 

 

 

_Fin._


End file.
